Atlas of the Serpent Men - A Tale of Conan of Cimmeria
by ChrisLAdams
Summary: Leaving the comforts of his kingdom, Conan, King of Aquilonia, embarks on a quest that has virtually no chance of success. With only a single retainer, he must find a relic of the ancient race of serpent men. It's of little moment to him that his own life might be the price of its capture.
1. Chapter 1

**Atlas of the Serpent Men**

A Tale of Conan of Cimmeria

Chris L Adams

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Written by Chris L. Adams

Based on characters created by Robert E. Howard (see trademark information below)

Art by Okan Bülbül

All Rights Reserved

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Legal disclaimer: permission to make this story available for FREE has been obtained from Cabinet Entertainment LLC. Do not pay for this story. If you hear of charges being leveraged for this story, please contact me at TheDoubleShadow .

From Cabinet Entertainment LLC's site: CONAN, CONAN THE BARBARIAN, HYBORIA and related logos, characters, names and distinctive likenesses thereof are trademarks or registered trademarks of Conan Properties International LLC. All rights reserved.

* * *

 **Preface**

I might have mentioned somewhere that I became a fan of pulp authors at an early age. But my love of adventure stories dates even before that. I recall discovering Arthur Conan Doyle's hero _Sherlock_ and later his _The Lost World_. I devoured Forester's _Sink the Bismarck_ and _Horatio Hornblower,_ and before that, _Two Years Before the Mast_ , and others. I can tell you that growing up in rural West Virginia, and not seeing the ocean before I was nineteen, I loved those daring sea-stories.

But, dear reader, never did I thrill so much until I drew steel and traveled alongside a certain dusty Cimmerian. If I'd quaffed ale-for-ale, clutched barmaid for barmaid, and swung sword, axe and war-hammer in mirror of the tales I read after I discovered Robert E. Howard—by Crom, I'd say I've lived!

Although I've oft commented (when discussing Howard) that there is much more to the man than Conan and, as have fellow collectors, lamented the fact that one couldn't buy a Howard paperback without reading _By the Creator of Conan_ on the cover—as if that single creation summarized his worth in that simple phrase—it would be a disservice to the man to not admit . . . wow, what a character.

Conan is Howard's obvious magnum opus, and possibly the most powerful character he created—maybe the most powerful character ever created—and those original tales are my favorite pieces written by him.

May God rest his soul.

Chris.

PS—I forgot this crucial piece. My friend, I hope you enjoy this little romp through the Hyborian Age I've crafted as an homage to a top-shelf writer by the name of Robert E. Howard, and his undying creation—Conan of Cimmeria.

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Somewhere on the outskirts of Greshahla, a town lying in northern Brythunia along the Hyperborean border…

Taking an overgrown path to the top of a windswept bluff, a man reined-in his horse in a clump of trees where he might remain hidden. The wind, ripping through the brittle brush lining the path, was biting, the force of it instantly tearing away the exhaled vapors issuing from the steady breathing of him and his steed. Yet, for all its cold the horseman did not outwardly seem to suffer from it.

The man was massive, seeming almost out of scale with the world around him. His expansive shoulders were nearly as wide as were two normal men standing side-by-side. His entire frame seemed to have been fashioned by the gods to careen into war, so powerful his body appeared even at rest—as it was as he sat his mount. His steed, an immense draft horse that would have been considered large even for its breed, snorted, catching the salty scent of blood on the air; the man tensed.

From his vantage point he scouted the frozen road below. He narrowed his eyes against the wintry gusts to better focus on a bend in the dirt track. He had expected to rendezvous with a rider along this stretch of road this morning. Instead, a ragtag band of ruffians was rifling the slaughtered body of him whom he was to meet.

Keen, blue eyes, overhung by a brooding, square-cut black mane shot with tendrils of gray, took in the scene of carnage at a glance. He loosened his sword in its scabbard, one calloused thumb unconsciously caressing the well-worn grip. He recognized the bandits and cursed, not bothering to stifle the oath. He could care less if they heard him or not. In moments they would be beyond caring about anything at all.

The man was Conan, King of Aquilonia. Here on clandestine business, these men had known him for weeks as Korma, a Cimmerian thief; Conan knew from of old that the less lies one told, the less one had to remember.

"Yrdihz, you filthy dog! This will cost you, by Crom. Heeyah!"

His shout was accompanied by the sudden planting of his heels in the ribs of the black. With a startled snort the horse launched itself over the edge of the bluff and thundered down the precipitous slope to careen into the dozen or more men below.

The rider on its back barked a ragged laugh at the surprised looks on their faces. The man's previously relaxed posture exploded into action. Rising in his stirrups his sword cleared the well-worn scabbard with a smooth, upward sweep terminating in an arcing slash that beheaded the first brigand he passed.

Momentarily stunned, the remaining bandits' eyes went wide. As soon as they saw who attacked them they knew they must fight, but it was with bowels as weak as suckling babes that many of them launched their efforts. They had come to know this enraged savage, having had dealings with the man in recent weeks that had benefited both parties, although the aloof barbarian typically operated alone, as a wolf without a pack.

They'd learned he was to come here this morn, the thought of all the gold and secrets a royal courier might possibly carry overcoming their good sense. Yrdihz, the leader of the band, assured them they could waylay the Kingsman and disappear before the barbarian arrived. Later, he claimed, they would listen to his tales of misfortune at the pub while they secretly smiled in their cups. Unfortunately for them it hadn't panned out as Yrdihz promised.

"It's Korma!" one cried.

"We were supposed to be gone before he got here!" ripped another. Sharp fear and desperation tainted his quivering voice.

One of the bandits was wrestling the saddlebags from the slain Kingsman's horse. He looked nervously over his shoulder as he ran for his own steed, staggering beneath the weight of gold coin filling the bags, but unwilling to drop his load. As well flee from the gods! The Cimmerian ran him down with his horse, the great hooves of the black stomping the man into red ruin, leaving glittering gold dancing across the frozen track in the wake of its passage.

"Erlik eat your bowels, Cimmerian!" Yrdihz, their captain, scowled. "You'd of done no less and you know it!"

"You're right," ripped the Cimmerian. "But I wouldn't've been caught with my breeches around my ankles unless a tasty morsel of flesh was involved, you scurvy-ridden, flea-bitten mongrel!"

Four of the bandits rode straight at Conan with lowered lances while Yrdihz drew his bow and awaited an opening; another four-horseman waited with him. If he expected to see Conan fall beneath the charge of his men the stoic expression on his face revealed no hint of disappointment when this did not happen.

Typically, a mirthless smile might play at Conan's lips while he battled, he finding visceral fulfillment in the spilling of blood and the cracking of bone; but not this morning. His eyes were slits of anger and his lips were pressed into a tight line across his angled features. His brow was furrowed and his body had become as tense as a sword bent nearly to its snapping point. The sweeping, lightning fast strokes of his blade caused his steel to sing as it slung droplets of blood that flew chaotically amidst the falling snow that was fast becoming a blinding white-out from the furious gusts of a growing storm.

Conan, however, was far too crafty to lose himself to anger and focus solely on the lowered spears of these bandits, while ignoring Yrdihz. The man was a Hyrkanian, an expert archer, and it would be a deadly mistake to ignore the reach of his bow. Conan prudently maneuvered his horse to keep the enemy between himself and their leader but heard arrows whistle by his ear or thunk into his buckler more than once.

His wooden buckler he used to fend off the spear thrusts of the nearer horsemen and swat any that came within reach. Shortly, it was riddled with arrows and fresh notches. In the bustle of conflict a bandit rode in close and received the steel-rimmed edge of Conan's shield across his nose and teeth. It mattered little. Moments later the man's head rolled from his shoulders and his ruined features were of no further concern to him—nor was he of any further concern to the barbarian.

He lopped off the tip of a spear, shortening its reach by a good cubit. Grasping the severed end of the spear shaft he side-stepped his black until, knee-to-knee with the spearman, he shoved three feet of steel through the man's tunic, grunting in satisfaction as he felt ribs popping in-half along the edge of the blade. The man's lungs sucked along the entire length of his sword as he withdrew it, the body tumbling to the ground beneath the stomping hooves of the electrified mounts.

Two more of Yrdihz's men fell to Conan's savagery, the remaining horsemen now becoming more wary, as might a pack of wild dogs attempting to drag down an old and seasoned wolf. Although they knew him from the local pubs and had heard talk of his prowess in the red districts of Kör, a remote city lying close to the Hyperborean border, this was the first time they'd seen him in action. Only last night they'd eaten and drained wine skins together at _The Scarlet Lass_ , laughing drunkenly when one would grab a serving wench and drag her into his lap for a kiss.

The dead and dying men lying in the road were mute testimony to the capacity of a sword arm who's like they'd never seen. Seated upon a powerful roan, Yrdihz cursed. "I believe this is what you were wanting?" The Hyrkanian mockingly held aloft a leather cylinder, a device to carry official documents. This he slung cross-wise over his back, calling out instructions to two of his men while those who remained he ordered to rush the barbarian.


	2. Chapter 2

Fighting off lunging spearmen Conan saw a bandit leap to the ground near the fallen saddlebags while one of his companions charged with lowered spear. Hastily, the rogue tossed the bags over his steed's withers and scrambled into the saddle.

"It appears I now possess everything you had planned on stealing for yourself!" Yrdihz grinned, his white teeth gleaming brightly amidst his thick, black beard.

"You fool!" Conan glared. "I didn't come here to steal anything."

"You expect me to believe that? If so it is you who is the fool!" Without another word the trio of bandits spun and galloped away while the others kept Conan busy that their chieftain might escape with the bounty. The survivors would rendezvous later to divide the spoils…

The barbarian eyed Yrdihz's remaining men. "There's one thing Yrdihz obviously doesn't know."

"What's that?" one of them growled.

"I always catch up to them eventually." Voicing a shout, Conan rushed them, the black ramming a horse of smaller stature and overthrowing its slighter bulk. The smaller horse stumbled, its rider flying from his saddle just as Conan's sword swished over his head in what was to have been a decapitating arc.

"Crom and Mitra!" the barbarian cursed at the miss.

Recovering, he followed with a backhand cut that found another target. His sword buried deeply in the forehead of a horseman's mount, the steed rearing with a shrill death-cry before pitching over backward, carrying his sword and its rider along with it. Not one to suck his thumb and curse the caprices of fate, the barbarian leaped to his feet in his saddle, drew his knees up beneath him and sprang for the falling mount the instant its collapsing body jerked his sword from his hand.

As he leaped the others spun and rushed off after Yrdihz, but Conan was too busy with the rider he'd fallen on to worry about them. With his sword stuck fast in the horse's forehead he wrapped both of his massive hands around the man's throat and began throttling him. The man frantically attempted to free a dagger from his belt but he'd fallen on top of it and couldn't reach it. His fingers clawed the frozen ground in desperation.

From the corner of one eye Conan saw the man he'd unseated rushing forward with drawn sword while the barbarian's blade remained stuck fast in the horse's skull. With an oath, Conan squeezed with all his might, feeling the bones and flesh in the man's throat crush and compress to nothing. Seeing this, the charging man changed direction and ran instead for Conan's horse, the black.

Conan rose. The body beneath him was nearly decapitated and bore the permanent indentations of his hands in its crushed throat. But it was already too late to prevent the bandit leaping into the saddle. He gouged his heels in the black's ribs, causing it to leap forward with a grunt of shocked surprise.

"Yrdihz! Wait for me!" The man thundered off in the wake of his rogue chieftain.

"Ymir's balls!" Conan cursed. The barbarian stood alone in the middle of the road, surrounded by dead men and slaughtered horses. Glancing about he spotted a rock embedded in the frozen mud. With a wrench that no other might have performed he ripped it from the ground by fingertips and nails, the large stone filling his hand. Drawing back his arm until the muscles swelled with the strain he heaved it at the retreating back of the man who fled on his horse.

The stone described an arc and struck the man fair between his shoulders. With a _whoosh_ the air exploded from his tortured lungs. The force of the impact launched him forward over the galloping horse's withers where he hit the ground, head-first. The bandit tumbled and rolled, finally coming to rest face-down in a snow drift on the edge of the frozen track where he lay gasping for breath.

Conan strode resolutely forward, having recovered his sword from the horse's skull. As he stalked toward his prey he glanced down the road. Yrdihz and his remaining men had disappeared. They'd be long gone by the time the Cimmerian caught his steed which, panicked by the body flying over its head, had galloped down the road and disappeared in the flying snow.

As he passed the fallen Kingsman he paused, verifying the man was dead with a grunt. As he stood, a dull glint in the dead man's clothing caught his eye. From beneath his jerkin he retrieved a dagger of odd make, overlooked by the thieves. A relic of bygone days, its design was unfamiliar, with an oddly configured pommel possessing a void where it was missing its capstone. Grunting, he slid it into the satchel slung over his broad shoulders and continued his interrupted path toward the bandit he'd knocked from his horse.

With one hand Conan grasped the fallen man at the nape of his neck, lifting him effortlessly from the ground until he dangled with his feet level with Conan's knees, facing away. The man started to speak, but coughed violently as he struggled to regain his breath. The barbarian, his face merciless and grim, drew his sword back to shove it through the man's kidney.

"W-wait!" the rogue finally managed. "I—"

Conan, in an incredible display of raw, brute power, slowly turned the man around to face him, keeping the rogue's feet a good three feet off the ground. An explosive smell caught the Cimmerian unawares. Glancing down he saw the man's weak effluence slithering out of his breeches. He wrinkled his nose in disgust.

"You craven mongrel! Wait for what? There is only one way this ends for you and the sooner you're dead the sooner I can go after Yrdihz."

"I beg you—wait! I know something you'll wish to hear!"

Conan eyed the rogue. On a whim he decided to hear him out, figuring he could always kill him after. He dropped him on the ground and stood waiting, his nose wrinkling in disdain whenever the wind wafted the reek of the man's bowels to his nostrils.

"I have a horse to catch, so talk. If I don't like what I hear you're going to be digesting a yard of steel. And talk fast; you reek."

The man leaned over as if he might lose his stomach, putting his hands on his knees in a sudden paroxysm. After a few moments he seemed to recover. "What in the name of Bori the Strong did you hit me with? It felt like you threw an ox at me."

Conan drew his sword back. He didn't have time for this; best to kill this reeking snake and continue after the others.

Seeing the barbarian's motion the man spoke quickly. "Yrdihz wasn't drunk last night like he pretended! For weeks he's believed you had something brewing and wanted to know what it was. He plied you with drink laced with the root of Shaulum last night until you mentioned you were meeting this Kingsman this morning on the north pike. You were barely able to stand after he drugged you, but he got you to tell him all about the Kingsman, and the map and coin."

"Curse his eyes! I didn't drink much last night and wondered why everything was a blur this morning. What does Yrdihz want with the map?"

"The same thing as you—he wishes to loot the serpent cavern. After you mentioned the map he seemed to care nothing for the gold, which is unusual—we were to split the coin amongst us and the map was to be his. You really should pick your drinking company more carefully—"

Conan shook the man until his teeth rattled and his neck nearly snapped. When he released him the man was staggering.

"What you've told me is enlightening but nothing of any real value," he said darkly.

Speechless from the violent shaking, the man held his hands up. "I have more," he gasped.

"What is it, by Crom? And it better be something useful this time."

"I can't read and I'm not as smart as Yrdihz is but I have a knack for being able to recall things I see. He made me look at the map before you arrived in case he lost it. I can take you to the cavern! Every line of the serpent men's atlas is as clear in my memory as your sword is right now."

The bandit, a riby little man, goateed and greasy, gulped loudly as he stared at Conan's blood smeared blade.

Conan thought for a second and then said suddenly, "Who killed the Kingsman?"

The bandit didn't hesitate. "Yrdihz shot him in the throat with an arrow as soon as he rounded the bend and then Hordikur stuck him in the gut with a sword as he lay on the road. That's Hordikur laying over there." He pointed at a beheaded corpse lying a short distance up the road.

"That Kingsman was mine—one I embedded in Herzog's forces weeks ago specifically to steal that map which was only a rumor until my man informed me it was genuine. Do you think I've hung around this Crom-forsaken, Brythunian crap-hole playing catpurse to steal bronze coins for grog? If it weren't for the women here I'd of long gone mad. You'd better thank Mitra it wasn't you who slew Gallardo; he was a good man."

Conan again eyed the stiffening corpse that was once Hordikur, a Turanian.

"Put Hordikur's breaches on. I'm going after Yrdihz and you're going to point the way. But I don't want to risk a stray wind wafting your stench in my face."


	3. Chapter 3

The craggy granite beneath their horses' hooves was rimed in hoarfrost, the bits of frozen cloud evidence of their great height. Foremost went Forba, the Brythunian having led the way for days of near constant riding. Their steeds were in dire need of rest, as were the men—rest which Conan allotted in rationed measures.

"How much longer do we ride this Crom-forsaken goat path?" the Cimmerian asked impatiently.

Forba bolted upright, having nearly fallen asleep in the saddle. He glanced fearfully over one shoulder where a precipitous drop fell for thousands of feet, grateful he hadn't nodded off. "Not long."

The Cimmerian grunted. They'd easily followed the trail of Yrdihz and two others in the lowlands but once they entered the mountains, where the ground became rockier, it'd become more difficult to find the spoor of those they trailed. Days before he'd become doubtful they were still upon their trail; but then they came upon a horned helm lying on the side of the rocky trace they followed, apparently dropped by one of the horsemen.

"Why are you so determined to find Yrdihz? The place he seeks is accursed."

It wasn't the first time Forba had asked. Before, the Cimmerian simply ignored the question but now it began to make him feel irate. "It isn't for you to know, so quit asking. What the—"

Conan drew up short. The track they rode was barely wide enough for a horse. Now, stepping around a bend in the trail, approached a riderless steed. Forba, having turned to face the barbarian, jerked his head around at Conan's exclamation. There wasn't room to pass the other mount.

"What are we going to do?" Forba asked.

Conan grimaced. Without reply he leaped from his saddle, his fingers instinctively finding crevices in the sheer cliff that would have baffled the lowlander. His leather boots sought purchase as the Cimmerian passed above both horses to drop to the trail in front of Forba's mount.

The riderless horse, a thin-framed gelding, whinnied in protest, its eyes rolled back in fear. The barbarian's fist collided with the side of the horse's head with the force of an avalanche. Knocked instantly senseless, the unconscious beast tumbled from the path and disappeared from view in the frozen fog of blowing ice and snow.

Forba's eyes were as large as meat pies as he watched the Cimmerian swiftly clamber across the ice-rimed escarpment and leap back into his saddle.

"It's getting dark, move out," barked the barbarian. "I think we're gaining on Yrdihz."

"How can you tell?"

"There was fresh blood on that saddle," Conan grit.


	4. Chapter 4

The icy plateau to which the path led was desolate. Nearly flat, and lying at the highest elevation for a hundred miles in any direction, it offered vistas of distant, icy peaks and glaciers whose beauty might have wrung sonnets from bards that would stand the test of time. But the beauty went unnoticed by the twain riding their weary mounts over the barrenness.

A half-mile away lay a jumble of rocks, amounting to little more than a protuberance stabbing upward above the otherwise flat landscape. Toward this they rode, there being nothing else to draw the eye. Drawing closer, they saw that, other than the grays and whites of stone and snow a warmer color tinted the mountain top. What it might be neither could guess. Ever wary, Conan took a tighter grip on his sword.

Forba grunted in revulsion as they drew nearer, but Conan's hillsman's nose had already caught the scent. Upon closer inspection the cause of the unusual discoloration was clear. A man—or what had once been a man—had been reduced to a thick sauce which, at this altitude and its below-freezing temperatures, was rapidly freezing into ice.

There was not much by which to identify the remains but for the splintered fragments of habiliments, it being these by which the two horsemen were able to determine exactly what the crimson muck was through which their steeds plodded. Scattered about were bits of breeches and jerkin. These had obviously been torn from their wearer as he was being reduced into pure gore by an entity of immeasurable power.

Conan didn't understand the supernatural, but he recognized it when he saw it. "Crom," he muttered.

"I told you this place was accursed," hissed Forba, fearfully. "We were fools to come here!"

"Shut up, dog!" he barked. "By the color of yon jerkin this is not Yrdihz—and that gray we met on the track wasn't his roan. He and one of his men are still ahead of us."

Apprehensively, Forba resumed the lead. Conan wasn't taking any chances of riding into an ambuscade so he had his guide proceed first. They drew near the rocky pile where Conan discovered horse tracks in the accumulated snow trapped between many large fragments of stone; the tracks disappeared into the darkness of a tunnel. Conan directed Forba to follow the tracks, the Cimmerian following—but not too closely, in case a stone should fall from above intended for Forba.

Their path descended into the interior of the mountain, a path that immediately darkened as the light was cut-off from the stone coming together over their heads to blot out the sky. A dim radiance reflected from the snowy plateau outside followed them for a short distance until even this faded, leaving them in impenetrable darkness.

Ahead of him Conan could hear the clip-clop of Forba's mount's hooves on the icy rock but he couldn't distinguish his own hand in front of his face for the blackness of the tunnel. Before they took many more steps a shout pierced their ears, a cry that could only be rent from one in supreme agony, or terror. The scream was cut-off abruptly.

Ahead the Cimmerian saw a lessening of the surrounding darkness. The tunnel soon opened into a cavern whereat a steed immediately collided into his black in its haste to rush into the twisting tunnel he was exiting; even in the low light he recognized it as the roan of Yrdihz.

Cursing, Conan pushed forward, noting a greenish glow that seemed to emanate from nowhere in particular. Only then did he realize Forba was no longer with him.


	5. Chapter 5

"What in Zandru's Nine Hells!" muttered Conan. He suspicioned treachery was afoot but he had no time to waste looking for the thief. There were any number of cracks and splits into which Forba might have slipped. He hadn't noticed any side branches, but admitted the possibility existed that they might have become separated by such.

The most likely explanation was that the thief had taken advantage of an opportunity to evade his captor. It was of no great moment to the barbarian: Forba had served his purpose in guiding him here. He prodded the black and proceeded across the cavern. With Forba all but forgotten, he focused on Yrdihz, seeing no sign yet of the Hyrkanian. The loud clopping of the black's hooves on the icy stone echoed loudly in his ears; too loudly.

"Hold," he whispered, tugging back on the bridle.

Slipping from the saddle he dropped the reins to the ground. The black would stay there until he returned or something frightened it, an event the Cimmerian couldn't see happening since the great beast feared neither man nor beast. There had been no repeat of the cry he'd heard so, clutching his sword, he started through an opening, the only such, on the far side of the grotto.

How can man number the favors bestowed him of the gods, gifted to those who live closest to the cold wilds of the immortal ones? Clarity of sight adorn such folk, or hearing that might be the envy of the creatures of the deep forests and snowy slopes.

Surely the man who entered the eerily lit tunnel had found favor with the great bearded one in whose name he blessed and cursed and swore, as was his wont of the moment. As the sticky scalp of a man pealed lose from the wall of the tunnel to smack wetly on the frozen floor, Conan's uncanny hearing heard—and hearing, interpreted.

His backward leap was greater than what most men might accomplish with a running start. With a spectral roar the stone of the tunnel convulsed like a cavernous, rocky throat. Having fallen upon his back with the exertion of his leap, the king of Aquilonia backpedaled while the tunnel, its howl of frustration thunderous, snapped its mouth shut, the edges of the subterranean passage extending like distorted, stony lips as it sought to devour its prey.

That eerie glow for which no source might be located now showed him the ghostly outline of a serpent man's face, graven in the stone wall of the grotto, a face that had not been there moments before. Knowing it had sprang its trap yet missed its prey, the entity's wrath knew no bounds. Straining to stretch its stony face forth to gulp this impertinent morsel who dared intrude upon its demesne, it gnashed its stony teeth, and writhed in its efforts.

"Crom's beard!" The Cimmerian leaped quickly to his feet, his fingers reflexively loosening then tightening upon his sword's grip as if debating the wisdom of trying his mettle against the stone of the serpent abomination.

The tunnel had been high enough for a man upon a horse to enter. With the monstrous convulsions of the ensorcelled stone continuing to stretch forth its tongue in its attempts to snare him, pursing its lips and pealing them back over its immense teeth in its struggles, the savage from the mountains of Cimmeria scanned the cavern as he sought another way.

He had no way of knowing if the masticated corpse in the tunnel belonged to Yrdihz or that worthy's sole remaining warrior. But as he cast his eyes quickly over the stone of the serpent cavern, Conan saw somewhat that gave him a clue as to the identity of him whom the mountain had devoured.

The roarings and actions of the serpent throat had caused bits of flesh and bone and other various pieces to spew across the yawning opening of the tunnel, much as the phlegm of an angry man flies from his open, cursing mouth. It was the clang of a horse's bit that Conan's ear and eye caught and followed.

"That was the warrior of Yrdihz," he muttered. He'd found the man, then, just not in the manner in which he'd thought to find him. It did not surprise him that the wily thief, Yrdihz, had let his warrior enter the tunnel first, much as Conan himself had forced Forba to take the lead when they entered the mountain.

"I'd guess the tunnel frightened Yrdihz's horse and he was unseated. That would explain why it was racing like mad out of here, riderless. But there's no way of knowing if the mouth gulped Yrdihz to boot, or if he's even now taking a different tunnel. Blast Forba, that cringing swine! That atlas would've doubtless shown any other route. If I see him again I'll feed his hungry belly a yard of steel."

Glancing over the floor more carefully he discerned something that caused him to smile triumphantly. In the eerie, green Hell-glow he saw sticky, wet footprints leading away along the wall toward the left of the tunnel which, he thanked Crom, had quieted. Careful not to step too close to the tunnel opening, he crouched and followed the bloody footprints, prints he guessed belonged to Yrdihz.

Twenty paces from the stony throat he found a slender crack in the wall, angled such that it would be impossible to see unless standing in front of it. Here the footprints disappeared. He could not know if the person who left the tracks entered the crevice in the wall, or continued, with the gore he'd tracked through possibly having worn off his boots. Never one to debate such things for long, Conan turned sideways and entered the slender entrance…


	6. Chapter 6

With the point of his sword leading the way through the darkness, Conan stepped rapidly along the jagged split in the rock, hoping it did not turn into a mouth—or a belly. He was relieved when it opened into an astonishing, carved room where a man crouched examining the contents of a niche in the wall.

"Yrdihz!" Conan rushed forward the instant he spotted the killer of Gallardo. "Fill your fist!"

The barbarian's own hand was already crushing the leather-wrapped grip of his blade. At the sound of his voice the Hyrkanian jerked in surprise.

"Korma! I thought you dead!"

"Not hardly, but that's a claim you'll be able to boast soon enough. For Gallardo alone I'd have followed you here. But your actions have imperiled one whose sandals you're not fit to tie, and for her I'd follow you to Hell itself."

"I don't know what you're talking about!" the Hyrkanian ripped. Yrdihz drew a curved scimitar with which to meet the hillman.

"No matter—you won't have time to!" Conan slashed wickedly with the straight edge of his broadsword.

Although Yrdihz was no mean antagonist, he faced one who was able to make up in massive displays of force and speed anything he might have lacked in skill which, when it came to sword fighting, was a quality in which he lacked nothing. Yrdihz was an inexperienced coyote nipping at the heels of a more experienced wolf who had slaughtered many of his likes and kinds.

Having taken the room in at a glance, Conan now ignored the stone niches lining the irregularly-shaped walls which climbed into darkness to a point above their heads– niches holding objects strange to the barbarian's eyes. It had been these shelves Yrdihz had been perusing when Conan came upon him unawares.

The clangor of their blades shattered the stillness of the mountain fastness. In this place could not be heard the ragged gusts that gripped the stark plateau outside, with only the sound of their steel and their heavy breathing breaking what would otherwise be the stillness of the interior of the planet.

Yrdihz grunted at the power behind the older man's strokes, quickly seeing he would never survive the continued onslaught of this unbridled savage. "There's enough loot here for us to each go away burdened with more than we can carry. Why don't we divide it—before one of us loses an eye!"

But Conan was angry. He had lost a good man, and the plans he and Gallardo had made, causing them to make this perilous journey in the first place, this man had put in jeopardy. Conan bellowed a war cry, bringing his blade down in an overhanded swipe that would have split the Hyrkanian from crown to crotch had the nimble thief not leaped to one side in time. Diving into a roll, the Hyrkanian came up against the stone shelves, his eyes widening as he spotted something interesting in the cavity before him.

"Gods, what a jewel—look, Korma! We don't have to fight over this trove—we can both be rich!"

In his hands he held a bizarrely shaped stone of glimmering, emerald green, the unnatural radiance of the cavern catching it strangely.

Conan paused in his attack as he took in the sight of the stone, a fact for which the Hyrkanian was grateful. In the glimmering of the green glow of the serpent cavern the stone was indeed captivating to the eye. Both men ogled it momentarily, before glancing again at one another.

What would have occurred next only the Cimmerian hillman knows. Would vengeance consume him, causing him to send the icy steel of his sword through the heart of Yrdihz? Or, having found the jewel he had for months sought, would he be content to take it and leave, uncaring if the thief lived or died in those epic heights?

For while Yrdihz yet gripped the stone, holding it aloft to distract the barbarian, a shimmering occurred on the only section of wall devoid of the receptacles holding untold numbers of antediluvian artifacts dating before the Thurian Age of Kull of Valusia. What had moments before been a surface of roughhewn stone swirled and blended until it became a mirror-like surface. But it was one in which was reflected a different world from the dim room in the vertiginous heights of Brythunia in which they stood.

Seeing the snarling face of the barbarian relax in surprise as he directed his gaze behind him, Yrdihz, overcome with curiosity, glanced over his shoulder to see what had caught the attention of the Cimmerian. Instead of the blank wall of stone he expected, he saw pictured there aerie heights and vapors tossed in a sky of sullen gray from which marched now an army.

Their indistinct faces, eerily snake-like, were obscured beneath cloaks of a ghostly hue, while their bodies were those of men. As he watched enthralled their leader stepped through the glimmering surface and without hesitation clutched Yrdihz about the throat and heaved him off the floor.


	7. Chapter 7

Yrdihz flashed upward, caught in the chilling grip of the ghostly form upon whose heels swarmed others of its kind. The atlas, for which many had perished to find this desolate place, fluttered to the floor, forgotten now that it was no longer needed.

Like a wintry blast, the specters poured into the chamber, revolving rapidly about the two men, darting in with swords of otherworldly make in their ghostly grips. The Cimmerian ran into them thinking to rend them but found his blade was useless. It was only the great strength of his thews giving him the speed wherewith to evade their thrusts which saved him, for he quickly learned his blade wasn't equal to the task.

As if through a vapor his blade passed harmlessly through theirs while, after he received a bloody furrow across both his forearms, he saw that his flesh was not so lucky. From every angle their spectral forms flashed toward him. Their wraithlike robes, which at first obscured their features, no longer hid their hideous visage now that they were darting about the chamber.

Peering into the dark recesses of their hoods Conan saw they faced an army of serpent spirits, ghostly images of the fabled serpent men of the past. From whence they were summoned, or what dark sorcery made possible their presence, he did not know, only that they were here with the very real threat of their spectral blades speeding toward his vitals.

"Crom's beard!" he swore in frustration. He retreated but they pursued him hotly.

Yrdihz hung suspended in the air while the ghostly entity, its cloaked face thrust close to his, whispered sibilantly. In the specter's fist was gripped an unearthly blade whose fine point was held over the Hyrkanian's heart. Lifted from the floor by supernatural means, for the creature into whose clutches he had fallen was not corporeal, the archer was held in the merciless grip of a creature that caused the hairs at Conan's nape to stand on end.

"Korma!" The Hyrkanian, still clueless as to Conan's identity, choked from where he was held in the clutches of the specter. "Quick—take it!"

"Take what, you fool?" ripped the Cimmerian, not daring to take his eyes off the swirling serpents. The entities were relentless, haranguing him with their swords while his own was ineffectual to deflect their blades, let alone pierce their hides.

He was by now covered in gashes. But although painful, he began to suspect their cuts were not designed to kill by cutting flesh alone. An insidious chill had begun to invade his veins, creeping along his limbs—a chill that should not be there from these shallow scratches. He guessed their cuts were drawing out his life into those ensorcelled blades… the way they glowed now…

"It wants to know of the map . . . who's seen it . . . it wants me . . . to release the stone . . ."

He knew his last moments were upon him. Wishing, as might most vagabonds, to exact some form of revenge on his enemy, Yrdihz tore his gaze from the hideous and hypnotic visage staring at him from deep within the cloak to seek out the Cimmerian who was confronted by a brood of the beasts. Fading fast, his sight darkening, the Hyrkanian tossed an object at Conan.

The barbarian caught it, immediately receiving several fresh cuts along his outstretched arm as he did so. But whereas before each painful gash would send a burst of cold lethargy along his limbs, this time their blades had no such effect, as if the jewel were an elixir against such. "It's mine, by Crom! The green gem of the serpent men—the wizard was right."

"What wiz—" The Hyrkanian never finished his sentence. The specter shoved its spirit blade through him until it protruded out his back. Bright, red gore ran down the fist and elbow of the haunt gripping the sword upon which Yrdihz was impaled, his blood pooling in an ever widening puddle beneath him.

Now the entity holding Yrdihz aloft turned its cowled head to face Conan. From deep within the veil of its cloak he saw slitted eyes more inhuman than any living beast's. Without any perceptible effort it lowered its sword arm, allowing the body of Yrdihz to slide from its blade where his corpse dropped gruesomely to the floor. Now it drifted toward the Cimmerian who stood holding the glaring, green gem.

Reflexively Conan palmed the gem as he eyed the entrance to the chamber, the distance swarming with spectral serpent men. Something in the shape of the gem caused him to glance at it. The dagger of Gallardo instantly came to mind. This stone wasn't an uncarved piece of rough shaped ore—it was part of a setting! He had a hunch based on his quick examination of the dagger days before, yet it was a hunch based on the calculating eye of a master thief.

The entity drew back its blade, it taking nearly all of Conan's self-control not to run, his hillsman's nerves being easily shattered in the face of the weird and the uncanny. From his leathern satchel he withdrew the mysterious blade Gallardo must have discovered along with the map. There was the pommel with the void he'd noticed earlier with the missing capstone. It took Conan but a glance to note it was similar in shape and size as the base of the gem. He inserted it without delay, grunting as he felt it _snap_ into place.

Now to his ear the sibilant whisperings and hissings in which the ghosts fought became the curses of the guardians of the serpent cavern. No longer were their forms so ghostly. Whatever glamour or spell had summoned them no longer held Conan's senses in captivity. Before him they recoiled at sight of the blade from whose pommel the green stone glowed promiscuously. Conan, roaring a wordless cry, leapt at the foremost serpent-ghost.


	8. Chapter 8

" _Thus it came to pass that as the king returned to Sargassa from the hunt with empty hand he paused at the edge of the forest to pay homage to Wicanna in hopes she might bless him ere he regained his city. As he uttered the last word of his supplication a strange figure of a man exited the wood not distant. His mien was such that the king feared for himself and his retainers and so unleashed him a quarrel that sped true. On approach of the man, slain by the king's arrow, it was beheld to be a snake that walketh upon legs, that masqueradeth as a man. In its hand it clutched a dagger of unusual make, which had lost its capstone…"_

~ From the chronicles of King Vizagroth of Brythunia

Conan instantly perceived something had changed when he attached the gem to the dagger's pommel. As if understanding they would need reinforcements, their leader—the specter who'd slain Yrdihz—turned toward the mirror in which was reflected an otherworldly scene rather than the stone walls of the chamber one might have expected.

With a deafening roar the entity cried out. In an instant there poured through the mirror-like surface another swarm of haunts. The Cimmerian charged for the doorway, his ensorcelled dagger slicing the spirits as if they were of flesh and bone. In spite of his horrific surroundings he laughed darkly at the familiar feel of a keen blade cutting flesh and notching bone. He felt a tingling and realized it extended to his extremities; balling up his ham-fist he caved-in the face of a ghost, his fist sumping to his wrist in its skull.

"So they _can_ die!" he roared triumphantly. Conan went mad then . . . smashing . . . cutting . . . stabbing. As he slashed the heavy, ensorcelled blade across a spectral throat the ghost gurgled its last and disappeared in a vapory ichor that instantly began dissipating. A resurgence of the spirits whirling around the chamber like dervishes forced Conan back several steps until he stood above the skewered corpse of Yrdihz who lay all unknowing of the tempest being enacted above his dead clay.

With the brushing of his boot against the hacked corpse of his erstwhile drinking companion and fellow thief, Conan was reminded why he was standing in this icy room atop a Brythunian mountain top. Contrary to what Yrdihz believed, the barbarian was not here to plunder—at least not in the sense a thief might assume.

Stooping quickly, he thrust the dagger's pommel with the green stone over the heart of the slain thief. Hesitating but a moment, the Cimmerian muttered the arcane words that would unleash the power of the stone—a phrase wrung from entities who had been ripped from their heathens' hells and tortured by an Aquilonian wizard until one was found who knew the forbidden words.

"Sappho pthalo sodin Sptha!" hissed Conan. The hairs on his arms rose eerily as taking part in sorcery went against his primitive nature, it creeping him out much as a sudden encounter with an insect might another.

Savagely he wrenched himself upright in time to catch the descending blade of a ghost, the specter hissing in protest. With a massive upheaval of power he shoved the dagger through its lower mandible to protrude out the top of its hooded skull. Conan followed by kicking it in the gut, sending its evaporating corpse flying into its comrades.

He heard a deep intake of breath, followed by a curse. It was Yrdihz—the man lived! The Cimmerian was relieved to see that the stone did indeed hold the power to restore life, as he had been told.

Resurrected by the ancient, arcane arts of the serpent men, Yrdihz struggled to sit up, venting curses all the while. "May Erlik eat your balls in a pudding, Korma! Why did you have to come to Greshahla?"

"Shut up," growled the Cimmerian, "and fight!" Seeing that the gem had restored the hacked corpse of Yrdihz to life, Conan was reassured that it would perform another marvel—he having been guaranteed of the stone's efficacy by the wizard, Melkronias, who understood such matters.

"What can I do against these things?" The thief staggered upright, fumbling in the floor for his curved blade which he finally found.

"Link arms!" cried Conan. "Now, you fool, before they kill us both! Only by contact with me may your blade find their vitals!"

The Hyrkanian did as bidden, linking his right arm with Conan's left, the two then standing back-to-back as the whirlwind of ghostly assailants hissed and cursed and darted at them. More than once did they feel the sting of those unearthly blades. But now they fought on a more equal footing, with the aura of Conan's gem-blade extending to Yrdihz, giving the Hyrkanian's scimitar the capacity to hack through specter flesh.

The two men battled, inch by inch, toward the doorway leading to the outer cavern, fighting desperately for each footstep, with each step bringing them closer to escaping the chamber. The mirrored wall reflected a foreboding sky broiling with dark clouds, while haunt after haunt flew into the cyclone of whirling spirits seeking the lives of these plunderers of the serpent chamber. The foremost among these, the one who had slain Yrdihz, was their commander. It eyed Conan malevolently.

"Twasss you ordained the torment of the brethrennn at the hand of the wizard—Melkroniasss! Ssslayyy themmm!" he hissed, his long fingers pointing oddly at the twain. "Don't allow them to leave the chammmberrrr…."


	9. Chapter 9

The leader dove at Conan. Behind him the barbarian heard the grunts of Yrdihz who, although hampered by the immense thews of Conan, yet used his scimitar to good effect. With as little effort as if the Hyrkanian had been a babe in swaddles, Conan dragged the thief about the chamber in his efforts to come to the doorway. And everywhere they went the vapors of slit-throated and gutted demons dwindled into nothingness while others of them reinforced their seeming never-dwindling ranks.

"You want this?" Conan brandished the jewel-fitted dagger and glared at the commander directing the haunts. "Come and take it!"

The serpent ghost's face wrinkled in hatred at Conan's mockery. "I wish I neverrr made that map!" it hissed.

Conan barked a ragged laugh, enjoying the baiting of an enemy. "So 'tis you I have to thank for the map. Melkronias tortured many a snake ghost before he found one that could sing like a siren!"

The serpent snarled and leaped, claws and spectral-sword gnashing and slashing at Conan's innards. "Yes, I made the map. And 'twasss I brought these icons of power and supremacy here that they might remain guarded until such time as our people were ready. You upset our scheme in waysss you cannot imagine, barbarian!"

"I've got quite an imagination." Conan sliced a painful furrow along the ribs of the ghost of the ages-dead serpent sorcerer with a powerful swipe it was barely able to deflect. "I just don't care . . . about you . . . or your plans!"

Each sentence was ripped out between the colossal efforts of mighty thews. Conan's arm, tipped with the ensorcelled dagger, rent dozens of haunts in his efforts to slaughter the sorcerer shade. The doorway seemed further away than ever and each passing moment saw the ghostly forces further augmented. Conan began to sense his bones might soon lie here in state, for even such as he might not fight forever against an army that never found its ranks depleted.

Wielding its ghostly sword with both hands the sorcerer swept in, with Conan catching its heavier blade on his dagger. Snarling, the hooded sorcerer reared, towering over the Cimmerian, his otherworldly power slowly forcing the poniard closer and closer to Conan's face until the man could see his own reflection in it.

Was this his own death-mask he was staring at, a precursor to what might befall in the next moments? Did all men see some vision of their face staring at them at the time of their death, a reflection arranged by the gods in mockery of man's mortality? How many dead had seen their own horror-filled visage in the sheen of a wet axe? How many slain had seen their faces reflected in the swords and maces wielded by the Cimmerian?

"Ha!" the King of Aquilonia barked aloud at the thought. _Countless_!

"You dare laugh?" intoned the serpent. Even at this close proximity, yet were its features obscured beneath its hood. One hand left its sword to seek Conan's throat. The barbarian, with equal effort, sought to push the sword away that he might thrust at its innards.

"I dare anything," Conan grit through compressed teeth. The chords in his neck stood out in stark contrast, like the distant edges of jagged mountains, as he reflexively tautened his muscles against the choking fingers. With a massive upheaval he shoved the sword away from his face.

Like lightning the sorcerer slashed his sword downward in a wicked cut. With his gaze fixed on Conan's face, his own eyes widened in anticipation of cleaving this hated human through and through. From nowhere appeared a descending blade, lopping off the sorcerer's hand at the wrist, the specter's sword flying from evaporating fingers. In the flashing arc of the blade that severed its member it recognized the jeweled dagger wielded by the leering Cimmerian.

The serpent ghost roared in agony, its thrashings causing the hood of its cloak to fall away. In desperation it thrust its hideous face toward him, its mouth opening wide as if it would snap his face off his skull. With a snarl the King of Aquilonia thrust the serpent dagger down its throat, its eyes going wide in surprised shock as the dagger exploded out the back of its neck. The ghost army recoiled as the sorcerer began evaporating like a gray fog before the sun.

"Quick, Yrdihz!" the Cimmerian shouted as the haunts hesitated at their general's demise. With arms yet linked and their blades never ceasing to gut and maim, the two bolted for the doorway, diving through the opening to land painfully upon the ice-rimed stone of the cavern.

Behind them all was silence, the only sound being that of the roar of the wind which came to them distantly down the narrow path to the plateau. Inside the chamber they'd just fled a darkness had settled and nothing could be seen.

Yet standing where he'd left it was the black. Conan approached the horse, smiling as it turned its soft muzzle to him, expecting a treat. "Sorry old man; but later—I promise." The steed nickered. Taking the reins, Conan motioned for Yrdihz to precede him and together they started into the dark passage that led to the outer fastnesses.

"We just fought for our lives together, barbarian, and yet you still mistrust me?" Yrdihz offered from ahead.

"You're a thief; I'd be a fool to."

"Mayhap. But in this instance you have nothing to fear. I've never met such a man as you. You're no mere thief. Who are you—really?"

Conan saw no reason to continue the subterfuge. The alias had allowed he and Gallardo to snoop unsuspected, he in the town of Greshahla while his cohort he had sent to Kör, fifty miles away. Being a younger man than the Cimmerian, Gallardo had been a more natural fit to join the military of Herzog whom he had been told possessed the Atlas—the map that would lead to the stone, the stone he now possessed.

"I am Conan of Cimmeria, late of Aquilonia where many there call me king."

"Conan!" The name was known across the breadth of Hyborea; few there were who had not heard it.

"Aye."

Yrdihz fell quiet for several steps as he pondered this revelation. "I believe you now when you said you were not on the pike to slay the Kingsman. For, what need would have the King of Aquilonia for a few paltry coins? Why all this, then?"

Behind him, Conan pondered distant things, recollections that caused his brow to furrow with disquiet, and with rage. "My youngest granddaughter, Vasa, who is naught but a small child, has fallen ill. For weeks has she lain in a dark stupor, creeping closer day-by-day to death's door. The greatest healers of the realm were impotent to forestall what they one and all assured me must eventually come to pass."

"I was unable to accept their predictions. Having exhausted the healers I next sought the counsel of shamans and sorcerers, although it greatly taxed my simple upbringings to do so. One and all sought to scry some manner to alter Vasa's destiny. Yet only one of these saw a chance wherewith she might be saved—the fabled green stone of the serpent men."

The stone had disappeared in the dim past. It had for a time been housed amongst the trove of Kull of Valusia. Yet, as it was secretly stolen from the Temple of the Serpent Men so, too, came it to disappear from the annals of history until eventually no man knew its whereabouts.

Very few there were who knew it existed. Many of these believed it had been reclaimed by the serpent men and returned to their world long ago. Others guessed it had been destroyed, or that those who came to possess it knew not its heritage and thus its identity had become obfuscated over time.

"Melkronias, a wizard of dark lore, knew of the stone's existence," Conan continued his tale. "As he explained it to me, with the evocation of certain spirits he eventually came to possess the forbidden lore I needed, and for which I offered to fill his coffers."

"But it wasn't gold or jewels he wanted. Instead it was certain other items I'd come into possession of through war and plunder which the wizard demanded for remuneration, items the uses of which only one of his kind might comprehend."

In order to obtain the lore to barter for the items Conan possessed, the sorcerer summoned spirits from the underworld. Upon racks such as only one the level of Melkronias might conjure, he tortured out of them information for the telling of which they would die a thousand deaths when they returned to the lands they formerly haunted.

It was the location of a map—an atlas—detailing the disposition of many tokens of power, including the green stone, which these spirits eventually revealed to the sorcerer. This knowledge, along with the serpent phrase utilized to summon the power of the stone, he passed on to Conan that the great king might save the grandchild for love of whom the barbarian would have eradicated whole nations if needs be.

They exited the long, upward reaching tunnel and stepped out of its darkness beneath the gray skies of the frozen plateau. Here, Conan paused and spoke again to the thief. "Heed, Yrdihz: your band is gone. Thanks to the green jewel of the serpent men you have an opportunity to make a new life, different from the old. What say you accompany me to Aquilonia? Our archers could always use a man of your skill."

Before the Hyrkanian might answer, however, a feminine voice interrupted. "I say leave the vagabond to his just deserts, Aquilonian, and take me with you instead."


	10. Chapter 10

Stepping alluringly from behind one of the numerous stone outcroppings proceeded one of the most beautiful women either man had ever beheld. Her eyes sparkled as sun beams from beneath a mass of hair that was a veritable forest fire of red locks. Scantily clad, her white limbs were as purest marble for whiteness while her breasts were revealed to rosy tips which looked as firm as fresh picked berries.

"Gods, girl, where did you come from?" Conan asked.

But Yrdihz, although his eyes helplessly devoured her with the same relish his mouth might have a freshly grilled deer haunch, took umbrage at her comment. "I am no more a vagabond. He asked you a question, girl: what do you here?"

Her eyes were a vivid green, as green as fresh spring fields. They never left Conan's as her lips parted to make answer. "I saw horsemen taking the trail from my hut near the foot of the mountain; I followed. No one comes here. Arriving, I saw no one, but then I heard your voices just now, proceeding from yon cave. Did you find that for which you ventured to this barren place?"

Conan nodded his head. "I did, indeed. Come, girl, we'll accompany you to your hut. Mayhap we'll have a bite to eat to warm our marrow bones before we ride for Greshahla."

The girl seemed to have eyes only for the barbarian. Approaching, she laid a hand upon his broad chest. "And what is in Greshahla for one of such repute as thou?"

Yrdihz was staring at the girl's beauty, which was mesmerizing. Yet, for all her allure, to find a woman of such beauty wandering icy mountain tops in such a state was peculiar. A second-story man and a cutthroat, his suspicions were aroused. "I recall no hut. And where's your horse, girl?"

As though with great reluctance, the girl slowly turned her gaze upon the thief. Yrdihz found himself gazing into twin pools of spellbinding, liquid jade. For pure beauty he had never seen their equal. Across their fluid surface tiny gray clouds raced in entrancing reflection of the tumultuous sky. Her lips, redder than a thousand setting suns, parted to reveal teeth so white they were nearly translucent along the edges.

"You are one with a curious nature, Yrdihz of Hyrkania, Son of Zhaidak," she purred. "Many years have passed since you stole the bow for the theft of which your father lost his hand. Yet, still you wear that gauntlet covering your left wrist—as a reminder."

After she finished speaking, Yrdihz glanced at Conan. Her words were icy, barbed hooks in the Hyrkanian's heart. His chest rose and fell rapidly, crimson raced up his neck into his face. To further his guilt, Conan, his eyes hard as adamantine, heaped further condemnation upon him.

"You allowed your father be punished for your theft? I thought you a brave man, Yrdihz; it seems I find myself in the company of a thief _and_ a coward."

Yrdihz stammered when he started to speak. His mind was suddenly a jumble of confusion and shame. "No! She lies!" he denied.

"Does she, Yrdihz? Your face is flushed, yet it's cold enough on this mountain top to freeze blood into ice." The Cimmerian placed a hand on the hilt of his sword. "Get out of my sight. I've kept company with thieves and slayers, but I'll not abide a gutless coward."

Mumbling, unable to speak, Yrdihz staggered away, tears streaming down his flushed face, tears that froze in his beard.

"We're better off without that fainthearted weakling, King Conan," the girl said silkily once he was gone. She stood at his side, one hand upon one of his massive arms while with the other she turned his face toward hers. "Let us descend the mountain, my king; my hut awaits! Have you the stone?"

"I'd give my kingdom to spend a single minute in your hut!" the barbarian cried passionately, his eyes staring. "Yes, I have the stone, although the taking of it was more difficult that I'd imagined. If it hadn't been for Yrdihz—a shame the man turned out to be a spineless twit."

"Fortunate it was, then, you discovered it before he could inveigle himself in your good graces—"

The arrow, sped from the rocky path taken by Yrdihz, embedded itself deeply in the girl's left breast, the quarrel sped with such force it protruded a hand's breadth out her back. She cried out. Conan caught her, easing her failing form to the icy ground.

"What—" he exclaimed. Turning, he espied the Hyrkanian approaching. "Yrdihz! Son of a mongrel! Your father's won't be the only hand lopped off at the wrist. I'll dismember you until you're nothing more than a torso, which grisly thing I'll then topple off this mountain with a kick of my foot. Now draw steel!"

"Conan—wait!" the man cried. He held a hand up to forestall the enraged barbarian. But Conan was not to be stopped. Lunging forward, he executed a vicious swipe that, had it connected, would have cut the Hyrkanian in-half.

"Enough words," he yelled. "Fight!"

"Conan, listen to me!" Yrdihz deflected two blows from the Cimmerian's blade, grunting as he did so from the sheer force behind the blade of the King of Aquilonia. He didn't return the strokes but only parried to guard himself. "You're bewitched, you great, lumbering fool! I only told that story to one man and I was drunk or I wouldn't have done so. I warned him if he ever mentioned it, I'd kill him . . . and I now have. That man was Forba. Look for yourself!"

"You're crazy!" Conan shouted, staggering. He shut his eyes, blinking hard. Something seemed important that he was forgetting, something he could not recall. The point of his sword fell to the frozen stone with a _clink_. "What in hell, Yrdihz? Why am I so dizzy of a sudden?"

Warily, the Hyrkanian approached, sheathing his scimitar as he did so. "Don't strike me," he said. Stepping to just in front of Conan, he looked up at the massive tower of flesh and bone that was this mighty man of myth. "Gods, you're a hothead. I believe it now when they say the bigger they are, the harder they fall. You fell for her hook, line and sinker, you big oaf."

"Careful," Conan said, opening his eyes which were beginning to clear. "I'm still king."

Together they walked to the crumpled form. Rolling it over, they beheld a blurring image, somewhere between the mountain girl and—Forba! Slowly it resolved until it took the form of a serpent man. Conan and Yrdihz each cursed.

"It seems we were both fooled," the thief ripped. "This man has rode with me for months!"

The eyes of the serpent man opened. "For the first time in centuries your kind looks upon me as I really am."

"Who are you?" Conan asked. "Why have you done this? Why the masquerade?"

His eyes half-closed, the serpent allowed a sneer to cross his face. "You could not pronounce my name if I told you. Suffice to say, I was a servant in the household of the mage who founded this place. But ancient I have become. So old, I felt my death creeping upon me. For centuries I sought the green gem to restore youth and vitality. Years ago, I heard rumors of the missing atlas that showed the location where Xotaolaianx secreted the hoard, that selfish fiend—the same map your Gallardo discovered and sought to bring to you. I didn't count on him discovering the dagger, as well."

"Why didn't you steal the map and come here yourself?" Conan wondered.

"I was a servant, not a warrior. I feared the wardens. Only a sorcerer may command them. I only joined a band of thieves out of desperation. You saw what the outer guardian did to the man. And the ghosts of the mirror—summoned with ancient sorcery, they guard the talismans of power of which mankind knows naught. I had hoped to sneak in and plunder the gem while the guardians were busy with Yrdihz and his men. But I became fearful at the last and couldn't make myself enter, so I slipped into a side passage."

Yrdihz squatted beside the dying snake man. He gestured toward the dark entrance that led into the bowels of the mountain. "Whence came the hoard, Forba?"

"Xotaolaianx, after a century of compiling tokens of power from our dwindling kingdom, smuggled those items he collected to this place. Together with two others who were his equals in the dark arts, they cast powerful spells to fashion guardians to defend the lore until such time as our kind gained supremacy over mankind."

"One of the three must have taken the dagger of the green stone when they left this place, the dagger being a token of power in and of itself. Xotaolaianx retained the map–the chart your wizard, Melkronias, called the Atlas of the Serpent Men. It was this which was to lead our kind back into power after humanity had forgotten us."

The two men stood there, watching as the serpent man's life ebbed out. Each knew it was within Conan's power, with the use of the stone, to save him. Yet each knew he would not. At the last his face grew gruesome, indeed, his slitted eyes at last rolling upward beneath his scaly, wrinkled brow.

"Crom," Conan muttered. "They're a strange race—nearly as strange in death as they are in life."

"Who can understand the serpent people? They were sent here by angry gods in the long ago to destroy us," claimed Yrdihz. "Come, my king, let us leave this place."

They left Forba where he lay and started down the stony path. Not far distant they came upon the Hyrkanian's roan. It was from his mount that Yrdihz had retrieved his bow after discovering the horse alone on the path when he fled, ensorcelled by Forba's accusations. Further down the mountain they found Forba's mount, grazing from grass protruding out of freshly fallen snow. Tying the horse to a lead they resumed the trail south.


	11. Chapter 11

A few days later, on the outskirts of Greshahla near the Hyperborean border, a strange report was made. A villager, making his rounds to check his traps, found himself taking a shortcut near a series of cliffs where the townsfolk were wont to bury their dead.

Unseen, he watched as two men approached a certain tomb. Unaided, the larger of these scooted a large stone from in front of the entrance in a miraculous display of strength, both men then stooping low to enter. A moment later the villager saw a lambent, green shimmering reflected on the ice riming the rocky surface, for it was yet winter in the lowlands.

Curious, he continued to watch. Eventually, three men exited the tomb, which they left open. A third horse provided the mysterious third man a mount; together they thundered off southwest.

As they rode the southwest pike, Gallardo, his mind filled with questions, eyed Conan and his new companion. The stranger looked familiar. At last his curiosity, he found, must be cured of what ailed it.

"My king?"

Conan eyed his man, a half-smile on his face. He needn't tell him how relieved he was when, with the serpent stone pressed over the stilled heart as the barbarian mumbled the words of power, the youth drew a deep breath and opened his eyes. Well he knew the young man's mate, a beautiful Ophirian who anxiously awaited his arrival; were he to return to Aquilonia without him it would be to face a catamount.

Even so, Gallardo's resurrection had not been undertaken lightly. Conan's lifelong disdain for sorcery made it a difficult decision to visit the man's tomb. Yet, in spite of his hatred for the unnatural world of wizardry, he had felt the need to satisfy himself about something of which he had become curious. He needed reassurance that the stone's unnatural powers were not somehow connected to the serpent chamber. This living, breathing Gallardo was proof that such was not the case.

"Gallardo?"

Behind the two rode Yrdihz, a Hyrkanian, late of northern Brythunia.

"Who be yon Hyrkanian? He seems passing familiar to me."

Conan guessed this topic must be broached eventually; so, too, had Yrdihz. The Hyrkanian girt himself for what he knew must follow.

"My king, allow me," quoth the bearded archer. Urging his horse alongside Gallardo's, he eyed the younger man. Beside him Yrdihz seemed a grizzled fox. Twenty years his senior, his eyes held intelligence and sobriety of mien. In his forty years Yrdihz had fought wars and become a professional catpurse.

"My face seemeth familiar for it was I who sped the quarrel that felled you," he admitted.

"I knew it! You killed me, sirrah!" Gallardo swore a wrathful oath, hauling his steed to a standstill in the middle of the road and drawing his sword. "My king—we ride with a felon!"

"Hold, Gallardo! Yes, 'twas the band of Yrdihz who ransacked you on the pike that day we were to meet. But he's put that life behind him. He saved my life when I faced the serpent man disguised as a beautiful siren. He's a man of Aquilonia now."

"But he killed me!" maintained Gallardo.

"Aye," admitted Yrdihz. "That I did. But as the green jewel brought thee to life, so too, did it I. I was slain by a serpent ghost after pilfering the green gem that restored life to you. We are brothers of the stone now, you and I. You may have my hand on it."

"We must keep this bit of Gallardo's death between ourselves," Conan warned, looking pointedly at Yrdihz. "Were Sela to learn you slew her Gallardo we'd never hear the end of it."

At mention of the buxom, raven-haired Ophirian, Gallardo grinned. "I have this over you," he said, extending his hand to Yrdihz. "My king has forbidden me to kill you. But should you step out of line it might happen that Sela hears mention of your exploits in Greshahla. And it might be that not even the greatest king that ever lived could stop her in the consummation of her wrath!"

Laughing, the three kicked their steeds into a cantor and resumed the trail. They had miles to go and a young girl to save—a young girl for whom a grizzled king would venture forth from the comforts of his capital to confront bandits and serpent specters in the cold of ice-locked mountains far from home.

After riding several miles, his companions noticed the king had fallen into a sullen, contemplative mood, as though he pondered the weighty things awaiting his arrival. Gallardo commented upon the king's silence, asking him if ought was amiss—did he dread the return to the politics of rule, or was he but anxious about Vasa, his granddaughter.

"Certainly, I can scarce wait to pull Vasa's spirit from where it roams back to the brightness of the waiting world, Gallardo. Spring comes, and I will not have her miss it. But it is not this, nor is it the duties of my station, which you intuitively guessed quite often pale as compared to the life I led as a common man, which have me thinking."

The king eyed the dagger Gallardo had discovered with the atlas where it stuck out of his belt, the serpent gem gleaming from its pommel like green Hell-fire. "You will keep this between us: I have been mulling this entire misadventure, brought on by the illness into which Vasa mysteriously fell prey. In doing so, I have thought much of the solution which only Melkronias was able to offer."

"He alone knew of this stone, and in supplying the knowledge of it he came into possession of objects I had accumulated without understanding their power and abilities—items similar in nature to the objects I saw in the serpent cavern, one of which was this gem."

Conan's companions immediately caught the insinuation, but it was Yrdihz who voiced his understanding. "You mean to say you suspicion this wizard, this Melkronias, of having caused the malady to your granddaughter in the first place, with the intention of eventually coming into possession of the serpent stone?"

Conan's face was dark. His keen eyes scanned the trail and he didn't bother turning his head when he made his reply. "Not merely the gem, but the location of the serpent chamber with the relics. I deem when we return I shall shortly receive a visit from the wizard, whom has never visited me before the day I summoned him as a last resort to save Vasa. But when he comes again, I'm guessing it will be to take the stone—and a man."

Gallardo asked, "A man? What man, my king? And how would he ever find the relics? You said yourself the Atlas was lost. Without it, how might Melkronias find the chamber if he aims to loot it? Only you and Yrdihz now know its whereabouts—Oh!"

Conan glanced briefly at young Gallardo. "My thought precisely, only you voiced it with more eloquence."

Their moods somber, the three rode on in silence. Shortly, they crossed into Nemedia where they would skirt towns and cities that they might make their way in secret to their own borders. They currently didn't war with the Nemedians, but that could change with the shifting of a single breeze.

 _Consummatum est_

About the Author

Chris hails from Dayton, Ohio circa spring, 1969.

At about age six his family moved to Virginia. After only 2 years there, the countryside beckoned and his family moved to a horse farm in rural West Virginia where his parents yet reside.

The farm afforded plenty of opportunity to enjoy the great outdoors. As an adolescent, he played Tarzan in the trees, and Huck Finn on the Bluestone River which surrounds his folks' 80+ acre farm.

In the wilds of the farm and surrounds he scaled cliffs, learned to shoot and ride horses and played 'war' with his friends where they utilized an arsenal of BB guns to heat up each other's derrieres to howls of laughter and cries of pain and wrath.

Growing up without the benefit of cable and satellite he developed a love of reading early on. After devouring many of the classics of both ancient and modern literature he settled into his favorite niche of pulp writers upon discovering such authors as H.P. Lovecraft, Robert E. Howard, Edmond Hamilton, Clark Ashton Smith, A. Merritt and Edgar Rice Burroughs.

An avid hobbyist, he is a guitarist, having been in an out of many bands since the late 80s. Besides reading, writing and playing guitar he also enjoys collecting militaria and painting happy little trees ala Bill Alexander and Bob Ross.

Chris has been employed with ABB Inc. since 1992 and is currently a Senior Systems Engineer in IS.

He resides in southern West Virginia with his wife and two children.

List of Works

 **Currently available:**

 _The Valley of Despair_

 _On A Winter's Eve_

 _The Treasure of Akram el-Amin_

 _The Blonde Goddess of Tikka-Tikka (Tales of the Tomahawk Vol. I)_

 _The Cosmos of Despair (Sequel to The Valley of Despair)_

 _Atlas of the Serpent Men (A Tale of Conan of Cimmeria in tribute to Robert E. Howard)_

 **Coming soon:**

 _The Banshee of the Atacama (Tales of the Tomahawk Vol. II)_


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